NCJ Number
81396
Date Published
1980
Length
26 pages
Annotation
Concepts of crime and crime control developed in occidental countries are considered, and their relevance to developing countries is analyzed.
Abstract
The unquestioning acceptance of the occidental orientation to concepts of crime and crime control has been primarily due to developing countries having been the colonies of the developed countries. With the shifting of power into the hands of a more indigenously oriented segment of the population, occidental orientations have been subjected to critical analysis. Concepts of crime control developed in occidental countries have included incapacitation, rehabilitation and reformation, reintegration, the sheltered society (a society separated from normative society geared to the handicaps of those who engage in antisocial behavior in normative society), and social engineering. All the methods of crime control developed around these concepts have been ineffective. All of the methods focus on the control of the behavior of individual offenders through the criminal justice system; however, the criminal justice system is capable of impacting only a certain percentage of those who commit crimes, and such persons tend to be from particular groups whose deviant activity prompts the response of the criminal justice system. An approach to crime control which has not received much attention is the 'natural disaster' approach, which would accept crime as a reality from whose ravages citizens must be protected by making them less vulnerable and by restoring losses suffered. The overall consequences of crime would thus be countered. In defining the threats from which a society must protect itself, each society must have a consensus about its own reasons for its corporate existence. This will determine the forms of social control that will be accepted and learned in the informal interactions of citizens.